


A Tale Gets Told on the River

by KarenHunt



Category: Sharing Knife - Lois McMaster Bujold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:52:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarenHunt/pseuds/KarenHunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Capstone Cutter meets up with Boss Wain at Confluence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale Gets Told on the River

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [KarenHunt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarenHunt/pseuds/KarenHunt) in the [2011_bujold_fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2011_bujold_fest) collection. 



Cap Cutter sat on still another bench in still another inn, drinking still more beer and eating still more mussels. He'd been at Confluence for a bit over a week now, with no news of the boats he'd been seeking. The last two villages he'd stopped by on the Grace had no news, either. Whatever'd happened to them must've already happened before they could reach the Gray, seemingly sometime in the last hundred-fifty miles or so.

He considered turning back up the Grace and trying again. But the rivers were real high just now, and it'd be awful hard work to take his keeler back up. Better to go down to Graymouth and get some trading in before he turned back. At least he'd get something from his trip that way. He was mighty tired of waiting; seemed like he'd asked nearly every boatman on the rivers -- 'bout all that was left to do 'round here was to start asking Lakewalkers, and he wasn't about to chance that.

"Hey, Cutter!" Boss Wain's voice bellowed across the serving room. Capstone looked over; there was the man, strutting up with his chest puffed up like he owned the place.

Wain arrived at his table. He put his thumbs in his green leather braces and puffed his chest even bigger. "Cutter! Buy me a drink and I'll tell you a good tale. Naw, not beer! You owe me better than that for this tale. Get me some proper spirits!"

"First tell me what your tale's about."

"It's them missing boats o' yours. I took care of the problem for you, don't you know?"

"WHAT? Wain -- sit, sit! You want some of my mussels?" Wain sat across and grabbed a good-sized handful off his plate. He also grabbed Cutter's beer and quaffed a good half of it. Cutter waved over a scullion. He asked for another beer and mussels for himself and some spirits for Wain.

About the time Wain finished eating most of Cutter's food and drink, the scullion brought over his new beer and mussels, and Wain's spirits. Wain took a big swallow and leaned back. "Ah! That goes down good, I say!"

"About my boats. What happened, was it Lakewalkers?"

"Nah, bandits. Well, there was one ex-patroller Lakewalker by the name of Crane. He'd been running the gang, see, for summat over a year, I guess, though he'd not been their first leader. He'd got banished from his camp, I gather, and went down the river and ended up getting taken by 'em. He decided he wanted to run it hisself after a bit, so he kilt the leader and took over."

"Huh. They'd kilt a lot of folks, seemingly. Sure seems a lot for just one Lakewalker to eat. Did he send a bunch o' bodies north to Luthlia, do you suppose?"

Wain gave him a strange look. "Lakewalkers don't eat folks. Mostly the bandits threw the bodies down a nearby ravine or else dumped 'em in the river. Anyway, there was near forty of 'em doing their business out of a cave overlooking the Crooked Elbow. You know, 'bout a hundred miles up the Grace from here. Me and my boys, we snuck up on the lot of 'em and kilt 'em all. Left the Drums' heads on stakes to tell other bandits not to try their tricks on rivermen."

"Drums? On stakes? What's this?"

"They was a couple fellers helping Crane run things -- brothers, one huge man called Big Drum and one small called Little Drum -- drifted into the gang about a year ago, seems. Real nasty -- those two liked playing with their prey for a good long time before killing 'em. Couple my boys near lost their lunches when they learned about some of their games."

Capstone scratched his head, trying to think all this through. "You got fifteen fellers in your crew, and you say there were near forty of the bandits, with the leader bein' a Lakewalker? How'd you manage that? I'd think they'd put up some fight. None of your fellers kilt or anything?"

"Nope, none. Well, there was one feller got kilt, not from my keel. What? Did you think it was us all alone?" Wain gave Cap a sly grin. "We're good, and I reckon we coulda took 'em all on our lonesome, but better to have help. There was crew from some five boats in all. Me and my boys, some fellers from Boss Slate's keeler, and others from about three flats, including Boss Berry's. The feller that got kilt was from one of the other flats."

"Huh. That makes more sense, I guess."

Wain then spent the next few minutes describing how they'd split up into two groups to sneak up on the cave. Then he spent more minutes describing some choice scenes from the battle; they all starred himself as the roughest, toughest fighter on the river. Wain then spent a bit more time telling him all about the goods they'd collected and named six of the boats Cap had been looking for, saying five of them weren't usable no more, but one was bein' sailed down the Gray by a few of his boys. He promised to give Cap half the money they got from selling it, and said he reckoned the rest of the missing boats had been burned. By the end of his tale, he'd gone through all of his drink, most of Cap's mussels, and was starting in on the other beer.

After a moment, Cap asked, "Why did you sneak up across all that dry land? I'd of taken my keeler to the front of the cave and gone in from there. Shorter trip and all. Big tough feller like you, I'd figure you'd rather do that."

Wain got a vague look to his eyes; when the look cleared off, he switched to being perplexed. After a moment he said, "I dunno. It just seemed better. Don't want to risk the less experienced folk getting kilt when they don't gotta. The bandits woulda seen us coming and all."

Cap still had trouble picturing it. "You was fightin' a Lakewalker and only one of yer folks ended up a goner? Wasn't even nobody bad-hurt?" He paused, then added, "Boss Berry's flat was in it, too? Did she even have anybody in the fight? They was just girls, except for that sawed-off boy, brother to one of them, I think."

Wain gave him a sour look. Plainly explaining this was going to require admitting that other people had played a role as well. Still, after a moment, he smiled broadly enough and said, "You oughta take that sawed-off boy more seriously. It was him that got Big Drum -- shot him in the belly with a bow, he did. He got another bandit, too -- shot that one in the eye. He's a good shot. And, yeah, there was some got hurt. One feller got his throat cut and another got his head bashed. And Boss Berry's uncle got a knife put in his belly. But see, we had three Lakewalkers of our own, and one of 'em was good at healin'. He fixed up all of 'em, didn't even beguile anyone. He said once sometimes that happens when Lakewalkers do their magic on farmers, though later he said he'd figured out how to keep it from happening. Anyways, they took care of catching and killing the renegade Lakewalker themselves, too."

"You let a Lakewalker do magic on your folk? Did he eat one of the dead bandits after? Or maybe first? They gotta do that to do their magic, you know."

Wain's lip curled. "You don't know nothin' about Lakewalkers, do you? I've watched Dag doin' his magic more'n once, and he never ate nobody before or after. Tea, yes, and beer and mutton, too. But no people. He says it's not really magic, neither. They got some way of seein' double, and their magic changes one of the two things they see and that makes the other thing change, too. Or somethin' like that, anyway. When he kilt the renegade Lakewalker he made this magic knife for killin' bogles with. It'd been made from another Lakewalker's bone -- he says they aren't ever from farmers' bones and they aren't stolen, neither -- Lakewalkers say who's to get their bones when they die, see. Then the bones are carved into knives, but that one was already carved by someone else. He wanted to make it a magic bogle-killing knife, so he had to kill a Lakewalker with it to make it be that way. He said he wanted the knife more than he wanted his part of the share, so we said he could do it. It sure hurt him makin' that knife, though I didn't see much happenin' for him to get hurt from. I didn't see much the other times, neither."

"Oh. That girl who was with Berry, she mentioned a Dag, I think. Her husband, I'd reckoned, but the feller's a Lakewalker? Can't be her husband, then. Hmm. Maybe they just do their eating of people when you don't see it, is all."

"Naw. Berry said to me once that she's seen a lot of their magic, and not just him doin' it, neither. They were living on her boat with her, all three of the Lakewalkers, and they never ate anybody the whole time. She says when they're seein' double they can see things in the river, too. They went past Silver Shoals' rough waters without even once scrapin' their hull. Dag can see for a whole mile that magic way, and the other two can see half a mile. She says she don't need to hire on any local pilots or anything this trip, since she's got them three with her. And that other girl -- Fawn, her name is -- yes, she is too married to Dag. I take it that's why he don't live in his old Camp no more. They said it's either them or her, and he picked her. Fawn told me once that they mostly just eat roots from water lilies in their Camps. All the time, and hardly nothin' but those roots. They got lots of jokes about it, too."

The beer, food, and tale were done. Wain wandered off, probably to find someone else to tell his tale to.

Cap was silent for a bit trying to process this. He decided to check the cave and the back side of the island where the wrecked boats had been kept on his return trip so he could be sure the tale was true. You just never knew with river men or with Lakewalkers.


End file.
